THE sound of a high-powered racing car roaring up and down the runway at Dunsfold’s former aerodrome led to complaints of “intolerable” noise.

It led to a stand-off between Dunsfold Park boss Jim McAllister and members of Alfold Parish Council on Tuesday, with the Rutland Group chief executive angrily declaring he was being called a liar.

“I get upset when I am accused of something I have not done,” he told the meeting.

Mr McAllister insisted a Lola Le Mans racing car had been tested on the runway for just one hour on Wednesday morning two weeks ago as an experiment.

But members of the parish council were equally insistent the noise of racing cars was heard over two days and was not just restricted to one hour in the morning.

Waverley Borough Council confirmed it was investigating complaints of racing car noise.

The parish council was among those making official complaints after chairman Dr Jenny Masding caught the full blast of what she described as “Formula 1 racing” as she was about to tee off at Wildwood Golf Club on Wednesday, April 28.

“There is a lot of unease,” she said, pointing out it was rare she was upset by noise but on this occasion she was.

Invited to address the meeting, Mr McAllister explained that a decision had been made to carry out the unpublicised test session for one hour between 8am and 9am on the Wednesday morning.

This was as a result of the interest shown in Dunsfold by motor racing companies – and Britain leading the way in motor racing technology – attracted, in part, by the use of the former airfield by the BBC TV show Top Gear.

“We decided to carry out an experiment for one hour on one morning to see what reaction came from it. We did not tell anyone because, if we had, we would have got lots of complaints from people who’d complain for the sake of it.”

As a result of this test, said Mr McAllister, it had been decided no Formula 1 testing would be allowed at Dunsfold unless conducted in a silenced building on a rolling track.

But Cllr Masding insisted the “intolerable” noise was spread over two days and that there had been a “considerable” number of complaints. Among those who said they heard the racing car noise on the Tuesday were parish clerk Lynne Entick-nap and her husband – and parish councillor – Roy.

Mr McAllister retorted: “Not at Dunsfold, it wasn’t – it’s very annoying when we get unsubstantiated complaints.”

However, Cllr Enticknap – who has a lot of experience of motor cycle racing and was with someone who has worked with racing cars – did not complain about the noise, but said: “It was in the morning and afternoon.”

Insisting this was “totally wrong”, Mr McAllister said there had been quite a few jets arriving for maintenance and that the noise may have been from the planes running up their engines.

Cllr Enticknap responded by saying that the noise was that of a Grand Prix-type car going through the gears, adding: “We would not have been getting that noise from anywhere else apart from that runway.”

Before leaving the meeting, a clearly angry Mr McAllister said: “I am really tired of this sort of allegation.”

He added that he would install permanent noise monitoring equipment at Dunsfold in a bid to counter future complaints.